Film Scores: Bland and Samey?

As if the supposed decline of popular music wasn't depressing enough, I was just reading an article about how most film scores are really lame. And after spending about two seconds thinking about it, I have to agree. When was the last time you heard a really great film score? I mean not just a score that was pleasant and functional, I mean a score that caught on in the popular consciousness and could instantly be hummed by any number of people? Yeah, it's been a while. Where's our Third Man Theme? Our Midnight Cowboy waltz? Our Godfather dirge? Now that I think about it, almost all of my favorite movies have memorable music. Only a few have scores I don't much care for, such as Roman Holiday, Spartacus, and The Wild Bunch, to name merely three. I wouldn't say that a bad score can ruin a film, but I definitely do notice it, especially since I tend to watch my favorite movies many times over, the way I listen to my favorite albums many times over. Great music simply makes the images go down smoother. Kubrick once said film's closest artistic cousin was music. Think about that.

Besides, there's plenty of obscure pop music to go around, isn't there? Who needs an orchestral score when you've got Nuggets Volume II, right, Wes Anderson? Actually he does feature some fairly enjoyable original music from Mark Mothersbaugh in his movies, so I guess creative original film music is still out there. The score for American Beauty was pretty good. I mean, at least it wasn't trying to be so conventionally "orchestral" or what have you. And I couldn't hum you Johnny Greenwood's score from There Will Be Blood if I tried but at least he was going for something different. Honestly, though, I think films should worry about having good plots before they worry about having good original scores. One element at a time, folks.

There Will Be Blood (Anderson)

Paul Thomas Anderson has admitted that he began working on the script for There Will Be Blood as a sort of writing exercise, to help snap the writer's block he'd been stuck in since trying to come up with a follow-up to Punch-Drunk Love. And after seeing the film, I have to say that this little piece of information sounds about right. The finished product certainly has an aggressive, off-kilter charm, but I still can't escape the feeling that for all its grandiosity and fire, There Will Be Blood was not a story particularly close to Anderson's heart.

To compare Anderson to one of his filmmaking idols, Blood perhaps finds him in his Gangs of New York/Aviator phase. He wants to make great movies, he knows he's made them before, he doesn't want to repeat himself, and yet he doesn't really know what else he wants to say. My favorite film of his so far is Boogie Nights, which may be messy but skates by (oh Roller Girl) on Anderson's pure enthusiasm for the subject. He approaches his characters with a simultaneously satirical and affectionate eye, a balancing act that he milks for all it's worth. We laugh at Dirk Diggler, but we love him, because deep down he is just like us (except for the...you know). Both there and in Magnolia, I really got the sense that Anderson had a personal connection to the characters.

Punch-Drunk Love was the first sign, I thought, of a director who was running out of burningly urgent ideas and was instead relishing the opportunity to show off his film school knowledge. It was a strange movie, and also more distant than his previous work. At the time I remember thinking, "OK, that was cool, but hopefully next time out he'll get back to something more immediate." And now, five years later, we've got There Will Be Blood, which I liked about as much as Punch-Drunk Love.

With Boogie Nights and Magnolia, I had the feeling that Anderson was making movies about the people he knew, the people he liked, the people he rooted for. Daniel Plainview, on the other hand, is more like an idea than a fully conceived character. He is Greed with a capital G, Conquest with a capital C, but human with a lowercase h. OK, sure, so maybe some turn-of-the-century oilmen were actually like this, but my hunch is that most of those guys were decidedly more mundane. They probably sat in their offices and balanced the checkbooks while the immigrants went out and got their hands dirty. Plainview is more fun, but also less plausible.

I'm not saying Anderson should stick to the same kinds of stories with the same old San Fernando Valley lowlifes and losers. But if he wants to make another great movie, I'd like to see him dive a little more into his own soul and really share something personal with us again. Writing exercises are fun but also low risk. I'd like to see him do his Adaptation., his I Heart Huckabees - you know, his "God am I gonna look like an idiot when this is over?" movie. Some have called Blood risky, but for me it was too safe.

Of course, I came in with high expectations, so let's be real here and admit that there's a lot to enjoy. It's never predictable. It's funny and odd. Most of all it never begs for the audience's sympathy. Anderson juggles several provocative themes throughout the storyline: the emptiness of religion vs. the emptiness of capitalism, the way our absolute quest for progress can ultimately ruin the lives of our children, and probably plenty of others if you care to fish for them. But still, I felt like I could actually see Anderson sitting there at his desk cramming all these ideas into the movie, rather than just letting the movie flow through him. It's hard, people. Just ask Scorsese.

Nevertheless, every time Anderson sits down to make a movie, he is trying to make a great one. And for that reason alone, I am still curious to see what he will be making next.

"Film critic" rating: ***1/2
"Little Earl" rating: ***

Now This Is News

Forget about Eliot Spitzer. How about a woman stuck to a toilet seat? Highlights:

''The smell was overpowering -- a terrible smell about the house, obviously coming from where she was at.''

McFarren, 36, told police his girlfriend, Pam Babcock, 35, had a phobia about leaving the bathroom and may not have left the bathroom in two years, although he's unsure how long she was in there.

He said during that time, he brought her food, water, and clean clothes.

''The unfortunate thing is this truly is a case of two people, in my opinion, with diminished mental capacity,'' Whipple said.

Who's Buying Blu-ray?

I mean really? How many people have been watching their DVDs lately and been thinking "You know, there's just something about this whole experience that is seriously lacking"? Like "Hmm, this picture just isn't clear enough, wouldn't you say, Muffy?" Of course, given that I have never actually experienced a motion picture as presented on a Blu-ray player I am in effect talking entirely out of my buttocks, but that is beside the point. Am I the only one who remains perfectly satisfied with standard DVDs? Perhaps it's because I am of the generation who had to watch all those classic 70s movies on pan-and-scan video. Suddenly when DVDs came out, I was like, "You mean I get the whole picture? Please, don't tease me with your candy-colored visions." I'm still tickled pink that I can freeze a shot in a movie, and it doesn't have all these weird lines all over it! Let's see, the difference between video and DVD is:

widescreen presentation vs. pan-and-scan
jumping from scene to scene in seconds vs. fast-forwarding and rewinding
director's commentary, special features, subtitles, language options, etc. etc. vs...you get the idea

The difference between DVD and Blu-ray is:

????

I mean what? The picture? Look, I'm still pretty satisfied watching movies on my piece of crap computer monitor. OK, maybe if I had a ton of money, I'd think about a Blu-ray player. Or maybe I'd take that money and actually make a movie.

Also: Same thing goes for those SACD things. If I don't notice the difference between a record and an mp3, how the hell am I going to notice the difference between a CD and a CD?

Touché Mr. Fish

Responding to my earlier criticisms, Stanley Fish uses his current column to claim that... he wasn't making substantive arguments at all! Instead he's "making arguments about arguments." I've been foolishly playing into his game all along. And to think, he portrayed himself as a bumbling old man in that article about the difficulty of shopping at Starbuck's just to throw me off track. He writes, "Is it the best thing to do? Is it good for the country? These are real questions, but they are not questions I take up..." And why would you? That would be too easy.


Fish taunts me, "I was motivated not by a belief in God — which I may or may not have, you’ll never know," and I am stung. What can you say to a writer who admits, "Given a choice between being trivial and being ethical in any direction whatsoever, I’ll take trivial"? Fish continues, "...a reader of a typical “Think Again” column will have no idea at all where I stand on the issues that catch my attention, because at least for the length of the column (as opposed to real life, which is much longer), I am agnostic on those issues and interested only in the way they are playing out in our present cultural moment." Could it be that he's done it? Has he found a way OUTSIDE the meta-critique and transcended to supramodernity? Given his newfound powers of righteous rhetoricism it may now be proper to think of Fish as a sort of columnist demigod. I will have to reconsider my strategies.

You win this round Stanley.

Why is the Conventional Wisdom Wrong?

Mark Leibovich provides us with a "Scorecard on Conventional Wisdom" over at the NY Times. He concludes that it is often wrong. If the conventional wisdom is now that the conventional wisdom is often wrong, do we need articles about it? The people that report on stuff like this, Wolf Blitzer and Joe Klein for example, are mostly dumb. On top of that, they have no particular expertise in the field. It's only common sense that their opinions will not be first rate.

Leibovich provides a list of assumptions that have been proven wrong. Let's go through these bits of anti-conventional wisdom conventional wisdom.

1. "Bill Clinton will be a great asset to Hillary." - Without Bill, Hillary would not have a chance. Hell, without Bill, Hillary would not even be in the Senate. 50% of the Hillary supporters I talk to hope that she will be elected on the theory that Bill will be the one making the tough decisions. Seems like a dubious and sexist rationale to me, but what can you do?

2. "Money is everything." - Money is everything. Do CNN, Fox, Time-Warner, or NY Times reporters provide coverage out of a sense of civic pride?

3. "Barack Obama has a glass jaw." - This one never made sense. It goes along with the Obama's-never-been-tested meme. Was he going to start crying because everyone was mean to him? Isn't that what Hillary did? Is this really just another way of saying that you're surprised so many people are voting for a black guy?

4. "Hillary Clinton has no sense of humor." - Hillary Clinton may have the greatest sense of humor in the world. However, there's no way to know because she's stiff and awkward while speaking in public.

5. "The presidential race goes on too long." - This is driven by the press. The press is driven by the ease of reporting vacuous political gossip. People don't like presidential races because they are 90% vacuous political gossip. I could fit all the substantive information I've learned about the candidates from mainstream political writing on one double-spaced, 12-point, Times New Roman page.

In conclusion Mr. Leibovich, the conventional wisdom is wrong all the time because all of you are just guessing.

I'm Not There (Haynes)

I'm wondering if it would be possible to evaluate the quality of I'm Not There without simultaneously becoming bogged down in a lengthy discussion on my rather mixed feelings toward Bob Dylan himself, for that is an essay of a more thorough nature. Perhaps I'll just keep it brief and say that I like him more than the average pop music listener does, but I don't like him as much as most rock critics do. If someone starts ripping on him, for example, I almost feel like a fan. But when hardcore Dylan nuts start going on and on about the pure transcendence of "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," I just scratch my head in befuddlement. Occasionally I've been inclined to think that decades of effusive praise for Dylan's work is a case of the Emperor having no clothes; as John Lennon once said, "Dylan got away with murder." But when someone like Yoggoth tells me that he thinks Dylan is at least as good and possibly better than the Beatles, I just have to shrug and say "De gustibus non est disputandum."

And so it is that I came into I'm Not There with a mixture of excitement and skepticism. Excitement because I admired Todd Haynes' previous film, Far From Heaven, and because it seemed that the premise of having several different actors represent Dylan (even of different races and genders) was delightfully off-the-wall and ridiculous. Skepticism because I only like Dylan so much, and this seemed like a film geared almost exclusively toward those who speak of Dylan in that hushed, reverential tone I tend to reserve for the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. "How good could it be?," I told myself. "Even if Haynes has made the world's greatest Dylan movie, it's still just...you know...a Dylan movie."

And although that evaluation is ultimately not too far off, I enjoyed I'm Not There immensely. Yes, maybe Haynes has made "just a Dylan movie," but he really went balls to the wall with his "just a Dylan movie." For what he set out to do, he did splendidly. The problem with most biopics, I think, is usually a lack of effort. Most filmmakers figure that since people already know their subject's basic story, they don't need to try very hard to make the actual film itself entertaining/dramatically convincing/educational/aesthetically adventurous/evocative/weird/etc. I'm Not There does not have this problem. Haynes has submerged himself in a big ocean of Dylan: he packs the movie with so many knowing references and bizarre snippets that you feel like you're almost swimming around in an artist's work. If every biopic of a classic rock musician were made with the level of enthusiasm that Todd Haynes brought to I'm Not There, then I would be a happy man.

But when the credits rolled, I didn't feel as though my life had been enriched in any way. I had a good time, but didn't discover anything new about Dylan, Haynes, myself, or life in general. And this is where Haynes' approach arguably falls short. The standard critical word on I'm Not There is that "at least it's not another cliched, pseudo-uplifting Oscarbait biopic" along the lines of, say, Ray or Walk The Line. Not being an admirer of Walk The Line, I do not mind such an insult. But I bristle at the insinuation of Ray being "Oscar cheese" while I'm Not There is held up as a work of great artistic integrity. Ray, I feel, was the perfect example of a musical biopic that worked, and it worked because the film's director, Taylor Hackford, submerged himself in a big ocean of Ray when he made it. Hackford's enthusiasm and grasp of even the smallest details of Ray Charles' career came through. When Ray was over, I felt like I had learned something about Ray Charles that I hadn't known before. Hell, I felt like I learned something about myself. By contrast, Walk The Line was disappointing precisely because I was hoping to be submerged in an ocean of Cash, but instead I was only lightly doused with a squirt gun of Cash.

My point is, splitting Bob Dylan into eight different people was not necessarily the only way to make a great Bob Dylan film. In fact, I think one could make a great Dylan biopic featuring the same actor playing Dylan. I might actually enjoy such a movie more. There is this awkward veneration of "Dylan the shape-shifter" that I don't really understand. It seems like Dylan fans have continually re-written the script of their own fandom in a way that seems a little forced to me. It's like, "Oh, so he's not the folkie hero, he's the guy that constantly wants to change, so...um...you know what the best part about Bob Dylan is? It's that he's the guy that constantly wants to change!" Sure, yeah, I guess so. My favorite work of Dylan's might actually be his Chronicles book, because there he seems to admit that he's basically been a normal guy who's never really changed in any profound way throughout his career and that his fans have probably read too much into his artistic choices. Maybe so and maybe not. But I don't think Dylan is "above" the standard biopic format. It would just have to be done with care.

Maybe every great musician deserves two biopics: the standard one and the crazy one. I wouldn't complain.

"Film critic" rating: ***1/2
"Little Earl" rating: ***1/2

Moses Was High!

Was Moses High On Mt. Sinai? - MSNBC

Maybe Jesus was just drunk. Maybe Abraham was on Vicodin!

What Would Ayn Rand Say?

In one of the worst New York Times articles I've read, Nicolai Ouroussoff describes a new development that is being planned in Dubai. The project will consist of a six and half square mile artificial Manhattan. Artificial in the sense that the island is landfill, and also in the sense that they are copying the actual Manhattan. Oh, and throwing in one of those London egg-buildings. This will manifest architect Rem Koolhaas' unique and wonderful "generic city" concept. Koolhaas believes, "in its profound sameness, the generic city [is] a more accurate reflection of contemporary urban reality than nostalgic visions of New York or Paris." What better reflection of a generic city than...a generic city??

The article continues:

"The mixed-use project, startling in scale, is a carefully considered critique not just of the generic city but of a potentially greater evil: the growing use of high-end architecture as a tool for self-promotion."

Critiquing the generic city and self-promotion by building a generic city with your name on it - brilliant!

"The way Mr. Koolhaas addresses the island’s isolation raises the most difficult questions. If his island of densely packed towers evokes a fragment of the great 20th-century metropolis, it can also conjure its dystopian twin: a miniaturized version of a city of glittering towers built for the global elite, barricaded against the urban poor and its makeshift shantytowns. (Think of George A. Romero’s 2005 flick, “Land of the Dead,” with its menacing corporate masters peering down on a world of faceless zombies.)"

"But the thrust of his strategy is to turn the logic of the gated community on its head: isolation becomes a way to trap urban energy rather than keep it out."

Alright, I can't keep a straight face anymore. Koolhaas is turning the logic of the gated community on its head by building the world's largest gated community? And he's doing this by building it for Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, the guy who brags about building the first gated communities in Arabia?

"Whatever the answers, Mr. Koolhaas’s design proves once again that he is one of the few architects willing to face the crisis of the contemporary city — from its growing superficiality to its deadening sterility — without flinching."

So this is postmodernism for the profoundly lazy. Why bother to change anything about a concept you are critiquing? Just do the exact same thing and let New York Times columnists sort it out. So we come to my original question - what would Ayn Rand say? Koolhaas and al-Maktoum are realizing their personal vision. Their vision is to innovate by strict imitation. Undeniably a novel approach. Now that I think about it, this project has a lot in common with that George Romero movie. Both are poorly conceived, derivative, and boring. Both have facile justifications tacked on to massage their creators' egos. All they need now is Dennis Hopper. Sheik al-Maktoum, you can make it happen.

Yoggoth here - turning the logic of blogging on its head, challenging generic self-promotion, and facing the crisis of superficial sterility one post at a time.

7. The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs (1999)

I am convinced that the phrase "more than the sum of its parts" was coined to describe the slippery magic of 69 Love Songs. Taken individually, each of the album's elements are slightly enjoyable, perhaps, but not amazingly impressive - sort of like a well-executed bunt. Only when experienced all together does it become clear that the album is a home run.

For years I had only heard 69 Love Songs piecemeal, and didn't understand what all the fuss was about until I listened to it all the way through. Down at KDVS, they had a promotional CD featuring "highlights" from the album. I don't remember exactly which songs were on it, but after having read reviews comparing the band to Belle and Sebastian, I wasn't too impressed. Belle and Sebastian songs were delicately woven fortresses of melody and instrumentation; Magnetic Fields tracks came off as disposable and flimsy by comparison.

A few years later, Yoggoth began sharing his enthusiasm for the album and in an effort to spread the word, he made his own "highlights" mix and passed it along to a select few. This I liked a good deal more, perhaps having lowered my expectations after the first encounter. Even still, the album seemed more of an intriguing novelty than a serious indie-pop heavyweight contender. Finally, in grad school, I got my hands on all three discs, and listened to the album all the way through, and it was only then that I truly understood.

Because 69 Love Songs is a once-in-a-lifetime musical balancing act. At first glance you'd think this album could have been better in many tangible ways. For instance, about a third of the songs are gimmicky throwaways that could have been jettisoned and the album wouldn't have been too much worse for the wear, right? And about a third of the songs sound like they were written in two minutes flat and recorded in three minutes flat with no instrumentation other than a ukelele. Besides, in small doses, sure the lyrical conceit is funny, but over the course of three CDs doesn't it eventually exhaust its "songwriting exercise" charm?

Such were a few of my thoughts as I began absorbing this 69-headed beast. But as I tried sharpening all my criticisms, I soon realized that "fixing" any of these elements would not have actually made the album any better. Yes, only about 25 of these songs are truly first-rate. But 69 Love Songs would not have been better as 25 Love Songs, because...so many other albums are 25 Love Songs! The charm of 69 Love Songs is that is it a big smorgasbord of tracks that the listener can simply get lost in and uniform quality is not really the priority. Released in 1999, 69 Love Songs is actually the ultimate album for the mp3 age: it almost begs listeners to compile their own mixes of album highlights out of its sprawling potpourri. But just because some songs are better than others doesn't mean it shouldn't have been released as a three-disc album. Better to have given us the whole collection and let us pick our own favorites.

And yes, a three-disc album featuring only ukelele would have been torture - so Stephen Merritt knew to change up the predominantly acoustic instrumentation with a choice sprinkling of electronic tracks. Just when we've heard one too many piano ballads, a bouncy synth-pop song comes along to reignite the flagging momentum. And yes, 69 songs sung by Merritt and his admittedly soothing croon would have nevertheless become dreadfully monotonous - so he divvied up the vocal duties between himself and four other distinctively different singers, male and female. This way, even though we know he wrote every song himself, the album still has the aura of a group project, which gives it an energy it would have otherwise lacked. And yes, taking even the best songs here and playing them alongside a killer Belle and Sebastian or Elliott Smith track would probably make them seem cheap and somewhat lazy by comparison, but if you stand back and comprehend the sheer diversity of styles and sounds on the album, you will realize that very few albums from any era can touch it. And yes, most of the songs are laced with heavy doses of irony and sarcasm, but some of them, such as "My Only Friend" and "Busby Berkeley Dreams," are quite serious.

So there you go. It's a miracle that it all works, but in pop music, miracles arise from the most ephemeral ingredients. Just think about it: there are so many ways this album could have been bad. If all the songs were jokes, then this album might have been good for a couple of laughs. But they're not. If all the songs were cheesy ukelele throwaways, then you'd be insane to utter this in the same breath as Belle and Sebastian. But they're not. If all the songs were sung by Stephen Merritt, then you'd want to smash your computer into 69 little pieces. But they're not. He anticipated every criticism one might have made about the project and he addressed it with just the right dose of whatever-it-is. I'd give him more credit aside from the fact that no other Magnetic Fields album, as far as I can tell, comes close to achieving this kind of aesthetic harmony.

Maybe Stephen Merritt should consider doing 69 Religious Songs.